


Drafts

by somethingclever



Series: Tim IS a caring and nurturing person. [1]
Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, Post Season 6, Raylan/Tim if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9556865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingclever/pseuds/somethingclever
Summary: The emails Tim never sent watched him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this fic, nor do I profit by this work. It is a fanmade work made for my enjoyment and hopefully yours.

The emails Tim typed and never sent watched him from his drafts folder.  
  
June 21 2015: "Hey, asshole, you still have my bag.  
I liked your book. I've read it twice."  
  
July 15 2015:  
"The new guy is just as big an asshole and can't keep up. I would put up with you all over again just to have you here."  
  
September 4 2015: "The new CD hates my guts.  I haven't seen the sun in a month. I miss you, dick."  
  
December 15 2015: "New CD now hates me less. Unsure what I did to warrant his approval. He slapped my shoulder and called me buddy. Weird shit- you would laugh.  
Went to Harlan yesterday. Nothing happened.  Stay in Miami, this is a nice change."  
  
December 24 2015: "Is she talking yet? She should be."  
  
January 1 2016: "Happy new year, cowboy. Drink one for me. I drank a handle for you and everybody."  
  
February 6 2016: "Rachel is gone. It's only me and Dunlop left who knows how shit should be done. I guess that means it's just me. It's shitty.  
She made CD in Memphis.  Art is proud.  
Art misses you, too."  
  
May 1 2016:"The new CD quit. Said it was too much to handle here. It's less than when you were here, so I have no clue what he was on about.  
I put in for the position.  I was drunk and tired, I'm sick of officers [backspaces out] chiefs leaving.  I'll never get it."  
  
May 13 2016: "Had to drop off a prisoner off at Trumble. I stopped in to see Crowder.  He talked about you. I listened.  
He's a weird mofo.  I get why you like him.  
He tried to convert me.  I told him not to bother. He said he'll be praying for me, so now I'm checking under my truck before I get in."  
  
June 23 2016: "The new-new CD asked me to transfer to SOG.  Said it would suit my skills and personality. I'm"  
  
June 23 2016: "I don't want"  
  
July 1 2016: "wish you were here for my last day."  
  



	2. Texts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim doesn't respond well to ultimatums.

He didn't give in when she said he had to choose SOG or unemployment.   He’d never done well with ultimatums. She accepted his resignation on the spot, a petty meanness he knew would bite her in the ass.  He cleared his desk, deleted his unsent emails without reading them, and walked out of the courthouse, down the street to a bar.  
  
He remembered drinking there with Art and Rachel and Raylan, remembered it like he remembered coffee at the base in Afghanistan, moments of camaraderie in an otherwise solitary existence.  
  
He drank one for them.  
  
He drank one for himself.  
  
He stopped himself from drinking more for Mark.  
  
Well. He'd made his choices, now he had to live with them.  He wasn't interested in law enforcement anymore, his faith in that particular system was shattered, and bail bonds personing sucked balls.

He was tired. He opened a text message on his phone, set up the recipient, and typed in a message.  
  
_Are you ever tired of this, Raylan?_  
  
Of course, he didn’t hit send. He closed the draft, and sat back, looking at the mirror behind the bar. 

He wouldn't sell his soul at government rates. He was worth more than that.  
  
He pulled up the messages again and wrote below the first line,   _What makes it justified? How do you do it?_   He walked out of the bar and went to his apartment.  
  
He posted his credentials and price to the deep net, and within three hours he had four contracts to choose from.  He picked the second, set up payment, put his things into storage and closed his apartment… and hopped a plane to Columbia.  
  
His bullets weren't cheap, if he didn't believe in where they were going.  
  
_Do you think you'll find me, Raylan?_  
  
In six months of work, he had enough to never need to work another day in his life, enough money that he typed another text to Raylan, and didn't send it.  
  
_want to start that cult in Mexico?_ He smiled at the memories, longing chewing at his guts as he leaned back in the uncomfortable seat, waiting for a plane to take him back to the States.  
  
Well, he could stop. And do what? What was there for a man like him? Raised to brutality and bred for the kill?  He didn't enjoy it, it was just his job, he'd never enjoyed it, but it was all he knew how to do.  
  
He couldn't face college and he'd go to prison if he tried to work retail. If he just quit working altogether, he would kill himself – he knew that. He’d made his choices, he had to live with them, but… how was he supposed to live with this?  
  
_You said if I needed to talk, I had Rachel. I don't have Rachel._  
  
His thumb hit send, not save, and he cursed, fluently and fervently.

International rates were a  **bitch!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and commenting!


	3. Reply

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raylan gets midnight texts, and considers Schrodinger's cat.

Raylan's phone pinged and he groaned, rolling over to slap a hand over it- but he was awake, and he got up to relieve his bladder since he was awake anyway and getting damn old, and then when he lay back down he realized there wasn't any point to trying to sleep longer. It was four thirty in the morning, and he might as well be awake.  He pulled his phone to him and peered at the message notification- what the hell was **Tim** texting him for? He hadn't heard from that cranky little bastard in over a year- in fact, he'd disappeared.

Rachel had emailed him, pissed as all hell, and followed that email immediately with a phonecall. Apparently the new CD was a bitch, and Tim had either been fired or quit, but either way, he was gone.  And by gone, Rachel told him, she meant  _gone_.  No forwarding address, nothing.  
  
Raylan hadn't looked, he hadn't wanted to open the box to see if the cat was alive or not.  Let Rachel worry about it, he was gonna tell himself he'd decided to join a band.  He looked more closely at every young homeless person he ran across, though, and was relieved not to recognize them.  
  
He thumbed open the phone, and read the message- long, and, he realized suddenly, it was a bunch of messages all in one, timestamped over the last six months.  
  
The six months he hadn't been looking in the box.  
  
"Are you ever tired of this, Raylan?"  
  
_No,_ he replied, _I love what I do._  
  
"What makes it justified?"  
  
That was harder, and he stared at his ceiling before nodding to himself.  T _hey left you no room for another way out.  They've done wrong and they don't want to pay for it. There's more but that's the jist of it for me.  Different for everyone._  
  
"Do you think you'll find me, Raylan?"  Something about that hit him oddly between his ribs, a certain dread mixing with apprehension.  
  
_Do I need to start looking, Tim? Don't make me..._  
  
"Do you want to start that cult in Mexico?"  
  
_Hell, Tim, schools down there suck. You get it started, I'll come down once Willa's 18._  
  
"You said if I needed to talk, I have Rachel. I don't have Rachel."  
  
_You still have me._  
  
He hit send, and waited.  
  
The phone dinged a response. "This number is out of service. No hablo."  
  
He snorted, and hit 'call now'.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment! Comments make my day and keep me writing.


	4. Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tim picks up, what is said? What goes unsaid?

"What happened, Tim?" Raylan didn’t mince words. A year without talking? He figured he could skip the pleasantries.  
  
"Shit. I woke you up, didn't I? I... wasn't going to send those."  He sounded chagrined and uncertain, utterly unfamiliar and discordant. Raylan scowled. Tim was supposed to sound taciturn, cranky, or pleased with himself.  Not lost and exhausted.  
  
"Well, you did, asshole. Hey, I still have your bag. Where are you, I'll mail it?"  
  
"Keep it. It's probably ruined by associating with your hat."  
  
"There's nothing wrong with my hat."  
  
"It don't fit you, Raylan. I liked the other one better."  
  
"Still got them Oakleys?" Rayland didn’t have to add, the ones you took off of Colton Rhodes’ body?  
  
"I do."  
  
"Mhmm. We ain't talkin' about my hat. What would you want Rachel for?"  
  
"I'm thirty."  
  
"And I'm forty five, you got a point in here anywhere?"  
  
"You're forty six, asshole, almost forty-seven," Tim returned and Raylan grinned.  
  
"Call me a liar for a year, then- you got a point?"  
  
"My point is, I'm... I... it's a shitty place to be in your life, thirty and done working."

"You get hurt, Tim?"  
  
"What? Oh. Oh, no, no, I'm fine. I just... did you hear about what happened?"  
  
"I heard you resigned and disappeared."  
  
"She told me to go SOG or get out."  
  
"Fuck her!" Raylan exploded, "You should have called me Or Art or Rachel, we'd've found you someplace!  Shit, we could use you down here... be fun to work wi'you again. Outside Harlan."  
  
Tim's exhale was a laugh, "I wish I had. But, I went private contractor instead.  Been working pretty solidly this last six months..."  
  
"Shit. Shit, Tim. Don't tell me anything-"  
  
"I know, you aren't sleeping with me so you'll feel compelled to be a lawman," Tim's shrug was audible, "But I could tell you everything and you'd still have nothing. Nobody would. I'm not an idiot."  
  
Raylan relaxed, rubbed his face and groaned, "Don't be an ass, Tim."  
  
"I can't help myself. We established that years ago. But like I said. I’ve been working. Actually, that’s about all I’ve been doing, and I have enough my accountant says I am set for life, even with my drinking habits being what they are. He says I could afford to buy a few bottles of Pappy Van Winkle, too. Even if I make it to, like... eighty."  
  
"You won't make it that far, somebody'll shoot you first."  
  
"Probably you."  
  
"Fuck _that_, Tim, what the hell?" His heart stopped and his stomach twisted.  
  
"You're the only person other than Rachel or Art I wouldn't shoot first, Raylan - or at all. And neither of them would ever be able to do it.  I wasn't saying... it's not... you don't have a reason to."

"All joking aside," Raylan said, and Tim quipped,  
  
"We won't be able to talk at all, then!"  
  
"Shut it. Don't do that to me. Please. It was... hard enough with Boyd. You’d be…" _You’d be harder, you were my junior and my friend and I’ll feel I made you this way,_ Raylan didn’t say.  
  
"Raylan," Tim said, quietly, his voice serious – Raylan could imagine his face, knew that expression, knew it said _I don’t miss_ , "I swear to you, I won't ever put you in that position. Okay?"  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"And I haven't done anything against _our_  laws, in _our_ country. I'm a free man.  Don't... don't worry about me, Raylan."  
  
"Well, I’ll tell you, I wasn't, until you texted me."  
  
"Heh. I didn't mean to. We can go back to pretending I didn’t, if you want."  
  
"I know." Raylan took a breath, "When you gonna be stateside?"  
  
"Plane leaves tomorrow."  
  
"Stop by. I'll buy you a drink."  
  
"I haven't had a drink in weeks," Tim sighed, "I'd love to."  
  
"And we can talk."  
  
"Do we have to?"  
  
"Established I ain't sleepin' with you, and even the two of us would have trouble sitting more than an hour without speaking."  
  
"Amateur."  
  
"I'd get you to talk."  
  
"Wouldn't."  
  
"All I would have to do is say-"  
  
"Don't even start, Raylan."  
  
"Lewis was a better writer than Tolkien."  
  
"...I hate you."

"Yep. What time, and where?"  
  
"I don't know Miami, Raylan, but tomorrow around five thirty?"  
  
"Public okay?"  
  
"Scared of the big bad merc?" Tim’s laugh was back in his voice. Raylan closed his eyes and imagined his face.   
  
"You are smaller than me, aren't bad, and I thought you said retired?" He tossed back easily.  
  
"Semantics."  
  
"I'll text you a nice place."  
  
"Should try to go back to sleep, Ray."  
  
"Mm. Unlikely."  
  
"Give it a shot. You know how pissy you get..."  
  
"Bite me." Raylan hung up, hearing Tim's laugh echo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please leave a comment if you liked it - or hated it! or, if you'd like to see more!


	5. Keeping the Comms Open

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do with a life you have to keep living? Raylan and Tim meet for drinks in Miami, and Tim moves on.

Raylan was early to the bar and grill, taking the best seat in a corner booth, commanding the full view of the room.   Tim was early too, only a few minutes behind Raylan and smiled at him, wryly as he strode across the floor, the confident stride Raylan had to admit he’d missed a bit eating the distance between them.  
  
The last two years had aged him, Raylan thought, and longed for the kid he'd met in Kentucky- what a lie as that face had been, though... He was thinner (not unhealthily so, but close to it) making him appear taller, his hair sun-bleached blonder and his face and arms tanned dark, but his eyes were the same, dark and snapping fire.  "Good to see you," Raylan stood, holding out a hand to shake, and Tim reached out and pulled him in for a brief hug.  He tried not to stiffen in shock.  Had Tim ever initiated physical contact outside of necessity?

Not that he could recall…  
  
"You, too. Miami agrees with ya."  
  
"I'll say it does," Raylan sat back down and Tim twitched, glaring at the seat selection open to him. "Shoulda got here first," Raylan smirked, surveying the room.  Tim glared at him. "Let me have your back for an hour or two, Tim.  You were my junior, you should know you can trust me with it."  
  
"I was Rachel's," Tim sulked, looking young again.

"Or," Raylan smirked, "You can sit here," he raised an arm in invitation.  
  
Tim looked at him sourly and sat down across from him. Raylan waved over the waitress, and beers and bourbons were forthcoming.  Tim sipped his, his face relaxing a bit as he tipped his head back to swallow the liquor. "God, that's good."  
  
"You're a lush, Tim."  
  
"Uhhuh. I am, and it's been somethin' like a month since I drank last. This is better than sex."  
  
"You're either drinkin' or havin' sex wrong, then."  
  
Tim snorted, "Noted." He looked down at the tabletop, running his fingers across the coarse grain of the wood.  
  
"So."  
  
"So?"  
  
"You really gonna try not to talk to me?"  
  
Tim looked up at him, corner of his mouth quirking up and his eyes crinkling in a silent laugh, "I missed you. Your replacement was an asshole."  
  
"Did you really need to push him? Rachel said you pushed him about over.”  
  
"Oh, she _is_ smart... I did a little more than push him, although that’s all Rachel would say she saw, so it's what I got written up for."  
  
"Jeez, Tim,” Raylan frowned.   
  
"I turned around and my rifle wasn't there, Raylan."  
  
"... sweet lord."

"He's lucky I didn't beat him to death with it.  I was talking to a trooper and turn around and there he is, setting up like he was about to just take the shot. With _my_ rifle. His angle was shit.... Well. It was the Marshal's rifle.  Y'know what sucks? I had to buy a new rifle. They take time to get used to."  
  
"Like a new partner." Raylan nodded.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"How are you with your current love?"  
  
"I've got three. A standard M-82, a Remington semi-automatic, and a Satevari... you don't actually care."  
  
"Not really, but I hope you're all very happy together?"  
  
"We are." Tim smiled a little, "...How's Willa?"  
  
"Walks. Talks. Best thing in the entire universe. Smart, too."  
  
"Everybody says that about their progeny. Let’s see some proof. You got any pictures?" Tim sounded almost wistful, under his cynicism, and Raylan looked at him sharply even as he pulled out his phone.

He pulled up the most recent shots- costume day at school, and she'd gone as a Jedi cowgirl.  Tim smiled a little, "Not sure the Jedi Council would approve of those boots..." he looked for another moment, then handed it back.  
  
"You're thirty," Raylan said quietly, "Not dead. Had her when I was forty three which you _well know.”_  
  
"You were married when you were my age."  
  
"Very unhappily."  
  
"And you had a job you loved," Tim went on, "I ain't looking for sympathy, I'm so damn lucky, and I know it, but dammit..."  
  
"You don't wanna keep doing... what you've been doing... just to stay busy?" Raylan rolled his shotglass on its edges, watching it catch the light.  Tim watched him, leaning back and settling into the chair, trusting Raylan to have his back and let him rest. He looked contemplative as he replied,  
  
"It seems wrong, somehow. Like trophy hunting.  Never could understand the allure of killing a deer or elk or whatever and cutting off their antlers and leavin' the rest.  One thing my dad and I agreed on, actually, was it was a sin."

"I can understand that," Raylan agreed, "Don't wanna reapply to...?"  
  
"Hensley saw to it I couldn't," Tim said, "No college, sick of doing what I'm good at, and I'm shit at customer service."  
  
"You really would be. Consider teaching people to shoot?"  
  
"And be responsible for their bullets?"  
  
"You take too much on yourself," Raylan shook his head.  
  
"Says the man who carried the weight of a county on his back?"  
  
"I don't, anymore."  
  
"I don't know why I'm even here," Tim growled, picking up his beer and taking a swig.  
  
"Because we're friends and you're having a shitty time of it?"  
  
Tim swallowed, "I didn't think I'd live this long, Raylan. And if I quit, I'm going to keep living, and living, and... it's a lot of living and I have nothing to fill it with.  I don't have a family- my friends are...- and work isn't... and I don't have a partner or kids or anything."  
  
"Could work as a foster parent." Raylan shrugged.  
  
"...Raylan, kids would be better off where they are than with _me_." Tim’s voice was flat, his mouth turning down as if the beer had been bitter. He left no room for disagreement.

Raylan excelled at making room for disagreements.  "Bullshit," Raylan spat, furious that Tim would think that, would believe that of himself, "You're wrong. You wanna tell me that you wouldn't have done better with someone like you than with your daddy?"  
  
Tim looked down, jaw working.  
  
"You would make them feel safe, Tim."  
  
"But they wouldn't be," Tim said softly, and Raylan saw his shoulders fold and he licked his lips, nervously, "See, what if they gave me a kid... with an asshole dad, right?" He looked at Raylan, who nodded, "And I fix 'em up and I take care of 'em and maybe I keep them six months and they stop wetting the bed and cryin' all the time. And then maybe the asshole finishes the parenting course and the court gives them back, and I... have to give them and then in a month- it would take at least that long but maybe it'd be three- I get a phonecall, can I take them back? It isn't workin' out... And there they are, on my doorstep with their bag and in pajamas and the bruises are back..." He shook his head, hand flexing on the bottle. Raylan touched his wrist, lightly, and Tim startled, smiled reflexively.  "So," he said, his voice light and cheerful, "I find that asshole and I shoot him between the eyes, and suddenly, _I_ would be the bad guy in this little scenario."  
  
"Were you the kid, too?"  
  
Tim just smiled. "I wish I was that strong – to be a parent like that. But, I’m not."  
  
"I think you might be," Raylan said, slowly, "But it's your life and choice.  Just... you seem to like kids... and hate dogs."  
  
"I like dogs that aren't Chelsea okay," Tim shrugged, ordering another bourbon and sipped it, knowing it was his last for the night. "I'm... glad I texted you."  
  
"Yeah? Me too. Wish I could..." Raylan shrugged, waving a hand at Tim.  
  
"I made the bed, I can lie in't," Tim smiled wryly, "Such as it is."  
  
"You could work as a park ranger," Raylan said a little later, derailing the argument Tim had been _winning, dammit_ , over who had hated Raylan worse, Tonin or Gio.  "You'd be good at it."  
  
Tim almost shrugged it off, but then tilted his head, considering.  
  
He could.

That thought kept percolating, and Tim looked at the requirements, considering.  He'd have a better chance if he had a degree... but a call to Art and to his old CO whose wife worked with the department of the interior, and he had an interview.  
  
He sent Raylan a picture and a text eight months later, as he sat at the top of the fire tower, watching for smoke.  
  
_Miss you, asshole.  
_  
His phone pinged. _You know where I live._  
  
*  
  
A year later after their meeting in Miami, Raylan got a Christmas card in the mail with Tim's chicken scratches and a tiny handprint in green paint.  
  
He flipped the card over when he saw more writing on the back.

 _There won't be any asshole dads in this scenario._ __  
  
Thank you.

_Timothy J. and Arthur R. Gutterson_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are, folks! There's a little more that could be written, about Tim and Arthur, if there's any interest. Let me know in the comments!

**Author's Note:**

> There's a possibility of more, if anyone's interested. :) Let me know in the comments! Thank you for reading.


End file.
